Karl Lagerfeld (10 September 1933 – 19 February 2019) was a German fashion designer, artist and photographer. He was creative director of the French fashion house Chanel and of the Italian fur and leather goods maker Fendi.
Quotes
[edit]- Fantasy is often better than reality [...] It’s much more inspiring not to go to places than to go.
- Cited in Jess Cartner-Morley "Karl Lagerfeld shows off his Mad Hatter streak at launch of collection for India" The Guardian (12 December 2011)
- There is no marriage, yet, for human beings and animals… I never thought that I would fall in love like this with a cat.
- Referring to his love for his pet cat Choupette, CNN's Fashion Week: Backstage Pass, June 2013
About Lagerfeld
[edit]- Yet, for all his much-vaunted preservation of his privacy, he has always been noticeably willing to wile away an afternoon or so with journalists, spilling out well-honed anecdotes about himself - but these, of course, help maintain the mask. There is a particular story of which he seems especially fond, having trotted it out virtually word for word in almost every interview he has given during his 40-year career: "When I was a child in Germany," he merrily begins, "my parents gave me six bicycles - six bicycles, because I was a very spoilt child, hein? - and none of the other children had any because it was after the war, you know? But I wouldn't share, no, no, no. But I would instead come to school every day on a different bicycle and the other children would be very jealous."
Even the various assistants, administrators and acolytes who flutter around him are so well trained in the importance of this anecdote that I am told it within minutes of my arrival, before they nervously usher me in to meet the man himself: "You know, when Karl was young, his parents gave him six bicycles ..."- Hadley Freeman "The man behind the glasses" The Guardian (17 September 2005)
- That was his thing. He only ever wore black and white. Misogyny was also his thing, but they don’t want to talk about that.
- Hannah Gadsby Interview (2023)
